Head of Engineering

Head of Engineering, Noctra AS

Location: Oslo area, Norway (hybrid, with travel to pilot sites in Northern Norway) Type: Full time, early-stage equity Path: This role is designed to grow into Chief Technology Officer.

About Noctra

Noctra builds sovereign, offline-first AI for situational awareness, built in Norway for the defence and security needs of Norway and its allies. Our systems help defence, coast guard and critical infrastructure operators see and understand threats in the Arctic and the Nordics, even when networks are jammed or cut. Everything runs on edge hardware, every decision is logged and verifiable, and a human always makes the final call.

Our products:

• IRONLIGHT: tactical edge system that fuses camera, thermal and other sensor data on board a vessel or site and supports the operator in real time.
• ATLAS: data integration platform that turns AIS, radar, weather and infrastructure data into one actionable picture.

The role

You will own Noctra's technical direction and lead the engineering team as we move from early prototype to our first field pilots and on to our first contracts with defence and security customers. You will work closely with the CEO and the founding team, and this role is intended to become CTO as the company grows.

This is a defence role. You will be building technology for sovereign Norwegian and allied use, under Norwegian security requirements, and your work will be judged by whether it holds up in real operational conditions in the High North.

Security and eligibility

• You must be eligible for Norwegian security clearance (sikkerhetsklarering). In practice this normally requires Norwegian or allied citizenship and a clean background. We will sponsor and run the clearance process, but you must be clearable from the start.
• You are comfortable working under the Norwegian Security Act (sikkerhetsloven) and with handling graded information once cleared.
• You understand that a sovereign defence supplier cannot depend on foreign cloud or foreign control in its operational path, and you are committed to building that way.

What you will do

• Set the technical roadmap for IRONLIGHT and ATLAS, and decide what we build and what we leave out.
• Take the system from lab prototype to a validated configuration in a real operating environment, to defence-relevant technology readiness levels.
• Lead, hire and grow the engineering team, with security vetting built into how we hire.
• Own architecture, security and deployment decisions, including our signed, offline edge deployment on NVIDIA Jetson hardware.
• Represent Noctra technically with partners, customers and investors, including the Norwegian Armed Forces, Forsvarsmateriell, FFI, defence primes such as Kongsberg and research institutions.
• Build the engineering processes a defence supplier needs: requirements, testing, documentation, supply-chain security and the artefacts needed for accreditation.

What we are looking for

• Significant experience leading engineering teams, ideally in a startup or deep-tech setting.
• Strong background in one or more of: computer vision, sensor fusion, edge or embedded AI, real-time systems.
• Hands-on experience shipping software to hardware in the field.
• Sound judgement on security, reliability and operating under adversarial conditions (jamming, spoofing, loss of connectivity).
• Ability to explain complex technology clearly to non-technical people, including military and government stakeholders.
• Eligibility for Norwegian security clearance (see above).

Nice to have

• Background in or alongside the Norwegian Armed Forces, allied forces, or the Norwegian defence industry.
• Experience with defence, maritime or critical infrastructure customers.
• Familiarity with NATO standards and formats (for example TAK, STANAG).
• Understanding of Norwegian and NATO security accreditation processes.
• Knowledge of Python, Rust, C++, Docker and NVIDIA's Jetson ecosystem.

What we offer

• A senior role with a clear path to CTO.
• Meaningful equity in an early-stage company.
• The chance to build sovereign technology that matters for Norway and its allies, on problems that are genuinely unsolved.

How to apply

Send your CV and a short note about why this role interests you to ceo@noctra.no.